Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: Babalonian on May 08, 2013, 05:36:21 PM
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I think it's time AH had a rewrite (or introduction, if it exists I've never noticed it) of an old code-trick. Adding a diminishing return to the perk gain players receive can greatly cull the perk point farming going on across the main arenas.
In depth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminishing_return
In a nutshell/example: Let's say you get 1 perk in AH for 1 kill. After 50 kills within 30-minutes, you've netted 50-perks. Adding a diminishing return, only to the perk gain for the victor/farmer would net him less and less for each repeated kill, so the first 5-kills in 3 minutes earned him 5-perks, but the next 5 earned him 0.8 each, the next 5 ~0.6, and by the time it came own to his last 5 kills, he only earned 0.1 for each.
Now, it can be that simple, but a good diminishing return can be more complex, almost think and be very agressive at culling farming (same players being killed over and over many times within a short period of time) and really kill their gains (compared to trying hard in the MA "normaly") but also reward, in terms of maybe a bonus when fighting a horde, for a pilot killing many other pilots in a single sortie.
I think it would be a good idea because it would be the least impacting to stats and gameplay currently, but the most effective (I can think of) of solving this problem with intentional farming. It would also negate any need for HTCs to get involved with this type of "cheating", freeing up a lot of time/hours on their end when the complaints come in, beyond ensuring the codeing/diminshing-returns are working properly.
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While I get what you are saying - it hurts cheaters - however what about the rest of us who defend a base or attack and shoot down multiple players? Do I deserve less perks flying an F4F and shooting down someone routinely upping Spit16s? Nope.
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If you are saying a diminishing return for killing the same pilot multiple times (not 100% clear from your post), then +1 from me
I also like the idea of a bonus for killing a bunch of different pilots, but the first part is the most important I guess
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While I get what you are saying - it hurts cheaters - however what about the rest of us who defend a base or attack and shoot down multiple players? Do I deserve less perks flying an F4F and shooting down someone routinely upping Spit16s? Nope.
You would not get less if you were killing in a horde. As you shot down multiple cons the count would be rest. say if you shot down the one guy 6 times in an hour, but also killing 4 other guys, then you would get full perks. This is aimed at those who kill their shades. they rarely kill anyone else while setting up these cheap kills.
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You would not get less if you were killing in a horde. As you shot down multiple cons the count would be rest. say if you shot down the one guy 6 times in an hour, but also killing 4 other guys, then you would get full perks. This is aimed at those who kill their shades. they rarely kill anyone else while setting up these cheap kills.
Here's a better idea - ban the player cheating, and leave the system alone - they get outcasted easily enough.
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It can be made/coded to be fairly complex/smart. It also may take some fine-tuneing after being implimented so that it doesn't hurt off-hour MA play.
Horde's are actualy one of the easier things imho to avoid triggering any diminishing returns, if it were coded to recognise different player IDs. Hordes, in AH, we describe as often having many multiple players in it, even though they may all fly the same plane (a "mishun"). IE: If the code recognises that you've made 50-kills in the last 20-minutes of defending without dyeing, but all those kills were "contributed" from 35-40 different players/individuals, it wouldn't kick in. (In fact, I babled-off on proposing, since the code would be in place, it maybe even give a slight bonus for recognising you just got 50-kills in 20-minutes legitimatley from 38-enemy players... not necessary for AH, but could be a cool new feature/bonus).
But yes, I would like it to recognise the "perk farming" situation. When the individual is killing the same player(s)/shade(s) repeatedly and in very brief amounts of time. Other peramiters could be included to trigger it or how soon it kicks in (and also the rate/slope/agressiveness it starts to penalise), such as: is this happening to targets upping repeatedly at the same field, within XX-seconds of the target spawning they're killed, with a huge ENY factor/gain in the shooter's favor... the code would recognise these triggers and go "wait a minute..." first before after the behaviors continues it just stops rewarding perk points beyond a point.
There are, likely, to be some unintended consequences but adjustments can be made... even if you do trigger it yourself, it won't take away or penalise you, just stop rewarding you for the next kill as much as the last after a certain point (at the worst.... for that 0.1% chance it is 4am and you are beating on the only other player in the MA, who happens to be a two-week-trial account... imho, you don't really need more than 20-perks for that 40-kill no-rearm sortie anyways, and when you take 10-15minutes to rearm/replane the diminishing return would of reset.)
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+1 for the intent to reduce dishonorable acts
-1 for the logistics required to ensure penalty applies to player of x intent and not y intent
Example:
Software determines my intent in game to be malicious. My intent is not. I am penalized for logistical/statistical circumstances. I hate game. :mad:
Think of it this way... Has your buddy ever accused you of sleeping with a women that you did not.... Try to convince your buddy otherwise. It is Fcuking infuriating... I can see similar experiences in game when you're told "Your perk points are being reduced because of... "(xyz+abc)/7"
I understand that with proper coding the instances of this would be reduced, but even still. I do NOT want an algorithm to decide what my intent is and punish me without a jury of my pilot peers!
Perhaps a tiered warning system: "You have reached 20 perk points... Killing XXXXXX again will only yield half perk points for the next 20min"
"You have reached 40 perk points... Killing XXXXXX again will only yield .01 perk points for the next 40min"
At least with a warning system, a player doesn't feel restricted, just informed. It would also help that poor 2 week trial who can't stop upping from the same field to be hammered down by more savy players...
It's a complex problem indeed! :salute
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Actually I would argue almost the opposite ...... A kill streak should be rewarded with a growing perk ratio.
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Interesting thought, but must be able to differentiate between what AH players consider legal kills, vs the shade killing Bab referred too.
I agree it'd be nice to have a bonus to a wildly beneficial sortie. Certainly would be a nice reward for those earned kills. We're not discussing "earned" kills though...
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if someone wants to donate an extra $15 a month to HTC to farm points then so be it. If they were worth a crap they wouldn't need to farm points.
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if someone wants to donate an extra $15 a month to HTC to farm points then so be it. If they were worth a crap they wouldn't need to farm points.
+1, provided the diminishing return is applied only for killing the SAME PLAYER repeatedly.
It's a rather simple formula to take the perks for each kill (P) and divide it by the number of times (N) that you've killed that same player in the last hour. Pe=P/N gives rapidly diminished perks earned (Pe) for killing the same guy over and over.
This would also reduce some perks earned by spawn camping and vulching, which is a good side benefit as far as gameplay goes, IMHO.
If you put this in place, you could continue to allow perks to transfer from arena to arena (although eliminating that is still probably the simplest solution).
:salute
Ryno
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Whats to stop the player from changing the shades name,they want the perks for the main account so the shade has nothing to loose.
I think the community does a great job policing itself,when a problem is found simply inform HTC. I'm sure they will deal with it in their own way and it wont require and coading or penalty to the rest of the players.
Along time ago I had all my perks removed,not for gaming the game but because I used an inappropriate name. So rather than changing things in-game just report the perceived infraction to HTC and they will look after it.
:salute
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So rather than changing things in-game just report the perceived infraction to HTC and they will look after it.
Spot on.
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+1 for the intent to reduce dishonorable acts
-1 for the logistics required to ensure penalty applies to player of x intent and not y intent
Example:
Software determines my intent in game to be malicious. My intent is not. I am penalized for logistical/statistical circumstances. I hate game. :mad:
Think of it this way... Has your buddy ever accused you of sleeping with a women that you did not.... Try to convince your buddy otherwise. It is Fcuking infuriating... I can see similar experiences in game when you're told "Your perk points are being reduced because of... "(xyz+abc)/7"
I understand that with proper coding the instances of this would be reduced, but even still. I do NOT want an algorithm to decide what my intent is and punish me without a jury of my pilot peers!
Perhaps a tiered warning system: "You have reached 20 perk points... Killing XXXXXX again will only yield half perk points for the next 20min"
"You have reached 40 perk points... Killing XXXXXX again will only yield .01 perk points for the next 40min"
At least with a warning system, a player doesn't feel restricted, just informed. It would also help that poor 2 week trial who can't stop upping from the same field to be hammered down by more savy players...
It's a complex problem indeed! :salute
I agree it is complex, and I don't want it to penalise "regular gameplay" for you or myself. I didn't even think of it havin a warning in it to a player like "You have killed a player 40 times this sortie, you are now gaining less perks from them for 30 minutes, your score will not be effected, etc. etc.", I really like something like that. This could also "flag" players in the scores/stats so later when HTCs compiles them for the top pilots, they can review those individuals flaged more carefuly to see if they should be forfeited or not.
Actually I would argue almost the opposite ...... A kill streak should be rewarded with a growing perk ratio.
Not really an arguement here, I have hinted at it a number of times, if the cofing were in place to recognise you killing one player repeatedly, it could just as easily recognise you holding your own against 15-different players an possibley give a slight bonus (and it wouldn't take much of one, maybe 5%, on a big-kill sortie to be very notable).
Interesting thought, but must be able to differentiate between what AH players consider legal kills, vs the shade killing Bab referred too.
I agree it'd be nice to have a bonus to a wildly beneficial sortie. Certainly would be a nice reward for those earned kills. We're not discussing "earned" kills though...
It would by by parameters. I don't know how complex or "intelligent" they can really be made in AH, but I think there is the capability. Top of my head, very abusive farming would be player-A farming player-B, as player-B reups multiple times in a low-eny plane, as player-b gets killed repeatedly a short time after takeing off or spawning, as player-A is flying a high eny aircraft, as player-A is on the country with the highest ENY modifyer, and player-B is on the country with the lowest ENY modifyer.... these are recognisable patterns, and if paramaeters like those were in effect, it could really nip a perk farmer even before reaching 20-kills in less than 5-minutes.
Another benefit is that lets say this is two friends having organised fun, it lets them have their kill fest while not subtracting perks from them, it won't kick them from the server or such, this is just curbing the gain so it doesn't net them 262s after an hour or two... if that was their intention.
if someone wants to donate an extra $15 a month to HTC to farm points then so be it. If they were worth a crap they wouldn't need to farm points.
I think HTCs doesn't want to limit people to one account or a household to one account, that's never been a good policy imho for companies that do have one like it. However, for all the good reasons, this diminishing return would simpley curb one of the very negative ones... it may even be possible to have a parameter to recognise same IPs, ontop of others though, I wouldn't want to punish two brothers organising opposing hordes (legitimate groups with many multiple players) to have an massive engagement over some corner of the arena, and I'm with the group here that would like to give a little boost/reward to the most successful to emerge from these engagements.
Mostly though, I like throwing in the idea of boosting/rewarding for good game play with this because it will be the lemondade to those players who would otherwise only see the idea of adding diminishing returns as lemons.
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Spot on.
This does not, or rather, is not working.
It works for many things in the MAs, where the self-policing community is ever present and usually on a 24/7/365 shift, but there are alleys in this game that even at high-noon rarely see sunlight.
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This does not, or rather, is not working.
It works for many things in the MAs, where the self-policing community is ever present and usually on a 24/7/365 shift, but there are alleys in this game that even at high-noon rarely see sunlight.
Unless you're Skuzzy's shadow account, you have no idea whether it works or not. I reckon 90% of the 'infractions' sent to him are checked into and it's a matter of perception. Even then, if they bust someone it's not gonna make front page news, usually. Unless it's a forum thing.
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Spot on.
I don't really think HTC should be spending their time/resources having to police this problem indefinitely, when closing the loophole allowing people to abuse the perk system stops it permanently.
Morf, with a diminishing return for killing the same player inside of an hour, even if they switch between multiple shade accounts, they still are only getting full perks once per hour, which is not an efficient form of perk farming. What I think is happening is the shade-vulchers are orbiting an enemy field and killing their shade repeatedly. For example, ArchieD has almost 90 kills in just a few days on his shade account. The diminishing returns formula would effectively reduce the perks gained from vulching this new shade account over and over.
I still think the best way to nip this in the bud is by turning off the perk transfer from arena to arena. However, having a diminishing return on killing the same player in a short period of time is also good, because it has a side effect of reducing the perks gained from spawn camping and vulching the same upper, so I like this idea as well.
:salute
Ryno
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Great points Babs. :salute
It doesn't seem to be impossible to have criteria to either discourage or penalize pilots. It seems the question you're really asking is:
What is the criteria for "perk farming" and/or "shade killing".
:aok I'm very happy to see that the 'honor' among those in the community here dictate that this type of behavior is unacceptable and detrimental to the overall enjoy-ability of the product.
So, how can you apply a metric which successfully determines the validity of a "perk farmer" or "shade vulcher"? This is what it boils down to. If you can accurately categorize the actions of a pilot to fit the criteria of "perk farming/shade vulching", they can be handled. If you cannot clearly categorize those actions, then without human monitoring, it becomes very difficult to police/enforce.
As stated earlier, I would be infuriated if I was provided a message like:
"Your perk points have been reduces for this sortie due to AH:Regulatory infraction" And I've genuinely been working to get my kills. It's like i said, don't you DARE accuse me of something I didn't do, because it hurts my feelings and makes me mad.... :cry
It's gatta be in the math Babalonian. :cheers:
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Unless you're Skuzzy's shadow account, you have no idea whether it works or not. I reckon 90% of the 'infractions' sent to him are checked into and it's a matter of perception. Even then, if they bust someone it's not gonna make front page news, usually. Unless it's a forum thing.
Skuzzy is only one person, with many many jobs. We both don't have the numbers at hand, but I'd place my $5 on a player being able to farm enough perks for a 262 and utilise it before the first report is even filed into Skuzzy's inbox.
Adding this feature not only would give Skuzzy one less babysitting task, but it would nip these perk farmers in the bud before they could see any fruit to their labors, nevermind crank a 262 in the MAs.
I have always greatly enjoyed with some amusement the degree and passion to which a few people will defend perk farmers and their behaviors in this game. Not saying you are, but if you really like Skuzzy and the job he does at HTCs, do you not want to make it easier for him?
Kingpin beat me to it.
Adding a tool to do the job automaticly for HTCs/Skuzzy would be a good thing. Adding a tool that does it intelligently enough that it makes participating "in the action" the most fruitful way of making perk points.... Adding a tool that could, again with enough intelligence in the coding, potentialy reward players for killing many different players in a short amount of time and surviving...
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This does not, or rather, is not working.
It works for many things in the MAs, where the self-policing community is ever present and usually on a 24/7/365 shift, but there are alleys in this game that even at high-noon rarely see sunlight.
I'm wondering how you know this? The only thing players can see or the stats and they may well show player X killed player Y so many times etc. You cant see their account info so there is no way for the average player to know what if anything is done for any perceived infraction.
I know from personal experience that HTC will remove all perks with no notice and that's that.
Also while I like the idea of nontransferable perks,cant use MW perks in LW my question is what about the perks already acquired? Do they stay viable in LW and from x date on they are separate,I'm just not sure how you could work that out.
Also the diminished returns could still be gotten around with a simple name change every 10 minutes or 1/2 hour etc. so I'm not sure how exactly it could be made to work.
It's not that I oppose these ideas,it's more that I don't think recoading a part of the game is needed to accomplish what some players want.
:salute
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Skuzzy is only one person, with many many jobs. We both don't have the numbers at hand, but I'd place my $5 on a player being able to farm enough perks for a 262 and utilize it before the first report is even filed into Skuzzy's inbox.
And I'm sure perkdweeb would be the scourge of the arena. That or an excellent source of perks for a legit player with skill. :D
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And I'm sure perkdweeb would be the scourge of the arena. That or an excellent source of perks for a legit player with skill. :D
no joke, my first flight back after 3 months i nailed 262 and Tempest 8 min's in. If it's a legitimate problem i'm sure they handle it.
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no joke, my first flight back after 3 months i nailed 262 and Tempest 8 min's in. If it's a legitimate problem i'm sure they handle it.
Good man! :salute :D
(Are you gonna FSO?) :pray
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I'm wondering how you know this? The only thing players can see or the stats and they may well show player X killed player Y so many times etc. You cant see their account info so there is no way for the average player to know what if anything is done for any perceived infraction.
I know from personal experience that HTC will remove all perks with no notice and that's that.
Also while I like the idea of nontransferable perks,cant use MW perks in LW my question is what about the perks already acquired? Do they stay viable in LW and from x date on they are separate,I'm just not sure how you could work that out.
Also the diminished returns could still be gotten around with a simple name change every 10 minutes or 1/2 hour etc. so I'm not sure how exactly it could be made to work.
It's not that I oppose these ideas,it's more that I don't think recoading a part of the game is needed to accomplish what some players want.
:salute
I think we're both argueing on the same side of an arguement here, so I'll try to backup on my earlier statement. I have no doubt HTCs addreses these infractions when reported/discovered (but what if they don't get reported by someone?). I have no doubt HTCs takes apropriate actions agaisnt these individuals (sometime between 8am-5pm M-F, ontop of dozens of other duties/repsoncibilities).
Why does it keep happening then?
Is it really effective if they can farm a large amount of perk points and spend them before anything can be done to stop/address it (something quite possible in a single evening, nevermind a weekend)?
This request is not recoding the game to acomplish anything, we're askign for a new little snippet/script (with the least impact to current gameplay or "the way things are"). This request would stop attempts to farm perks, the way it currently is being done, stone cold. It has the potential benefit of freeing up a chore for HTCs and being utilised to reward/bonus for players who survive/overcome large engagements against many other players (as has been discussed, if it can detect you killing 2-players 80-times in a single sortie/hour, it can detect you killing 80-players 2-times in a single sortie/hour).